Blind Justice

It's another gray day in Streeterville, and this stuff is getting old. It was 73 degrees under partly cloudy skies at the Outpost in Back of the Yards. Drove myself home and voila, it's 57 degrees and overcast at the Mini, as it drives along the lakefront. Navy Pier looks dreary and lonesome. The boaters have decided it's much too crappy to be on the lake today. The newly working lifeguards are freezing their collective buns off. Memorial Day is over. It's OK to wear white. Let's get this weather thing aligned with the fashion and time of year, shall we?

Babs has jury duty this week and next. It's federal jury duty. The first time they tried to draft her for a federal jury, she appealed because she is self-employed, and when she is doing jury duty she is not working, and when she is not working, she is not making money, and when she is not making money, no money comes in to pay the bills. The measly few bucks they pay jurors does not cover one's daily expenses in Streeterville.

Babs and I are good citizens, mind you. We vote. We donate to campaigns. We recycle. We usually do our civic duty and attend jury duty. When it's the city or the county, it's usually no big deal. You go in, sit for a few hours, and go home. If you work for someone else and you're not self-employed, your employer gives you a benefit day. You continue to get your full-time salary. If you're self-employed, it's like they're punishing you for being a good citizen. Sorry, but you can't make your usual wage today. We demand your presence and we'll pay you $50 for your trouble. Don't show and we'll charge you with contempt of court and fine you several hundred dollars.

Then when you go to federal court to jury duty, you almost always end up on a jury. Personally, I have served jury duty for the City of Chicago, for the County of Cook, and the State of Illinois. I have never served on a jury in any of these jurisdictions. I served one time at the Federal Courts in downtown Chicago, and ended up on a jury for a week. A bunch of us were picked from the pool and told to go down to a courtroom to be interviewed. When I was interviewed and subsequently sent back to the pool, I was thinking, "Yes. Dodged that bullet. Get to go home now." Wrong! In Federal courts you just go back into the pool and go again and again until somebody takes you.

The second time around I was chosen, for a Civil Rights case. As it turns out I was there for a week. The woman who was charging some North Suburban cops with violating her civil rights had a spurious charge, and not a leg to stand on. She refused to get out of the car when told to do so, and had to be forcibly removed from said vehicle. She screamed obscenities and generally made a nuisance of herself, and still had to repair the broken taillight and get the license plates renewed. The jury deliberations went on for a couple of hours on Friday afternoon, and mostly came down to the fact that a couple of people on the jury are always suspicious of police. When it became obvious that we would be back on Monday if we didn't reach a unanimous decision, they suddenly changed their votes, and we got to go home, having done our civic duty.

In retrospect, my experience on the Federal jury was an educational experience. I actually got to see a court in action. I got to see how the law is carried out. I got to see the jury deliberation process, with its internal politics, warts and all. My job at the time sucked, so I didn't really mind being gone for an entire week.

Babs is not in the same position. If she is chosen for a jury, the government will be punishing her monetarily for doing her civic duty. When you run your own small business, with a staff of one, no one picks up the slack. No one fills in for you. If only blind justice could pay us all at our regular hourly rate (In this case, somewhere in the neighborhood of $100/hour) all of us could serve and not be punished for being civic-minded. OK, that's a bit much. Someone has to sit on juries for the justice system to work. It's just poorly designed, and some (Say the unemployed and the retired) are more likely than others to have legitimate time to do this kind of service.

I'm not sure what the answer is, but I'm tempted to say that we should have professional jurors. We don't have citizen soldiers. We have a professional army. We don't have citizen policing. We have professional, trained police. We don't have citizen judges, or lawyers, or mayors, or aldermen. We have professionals. They are paid to do their civic duty in serving the people. With professional jurors, those who are inconvenienced or punished monetarily for doing their civic duty would nevermore be put upon. And it would help alleviate the unemployment problem. How about it?

I am reminded at this point, of Arlo Guthrie's take on the justice system in Alice's Restaurant. "The judge came in and I took a look at the judge, and at the seeing eye dog, and I knew it was another typical case of American blind justice...." Let's just all hope that Babs isn't assigned to one of those high profile cases, and ends up sequestered.